Archive for March, 2009

Today was so busy – you know those days when you get one email out of your inbox only to find 2-3 new ones already? I got in this morning to find 42 new submissions that needed to be processed. And that was just this morning! I don’t even know how many other ones came in all during the day today.

I was so ready for lunch today! All that work made me hungry –

I had a salad with romaine, tomato, and black olives

2 slices of my pizza from last night

and some super juicy cantaloupe

I got a call this afternoon letting me know that group was cancelled tonight – I guess last week was supposed to be the final week for now, but we thought there was one more tonight. I was sad I didn’t get to see everyone, but I was kind of relieved that we were able to come home tonight before 9 pm!

Nick’s been working on an electric fence since we got home, and I went for a run. The weather was perfect, and I’m happy to say that I didn’t get bad side stitches until the very end of the run! According to the Garmin, I ran 3.51 miles in 34 minutes and something, which is good for me. I think my average pace was 9:44 or something like that. I’m pretty happy! It was a good run, overall. After running and doing a little bit of ab work, I was ready for a shower and some food!

I heated up some leftover meat sauce and ww pasta and one of those steamer bags of green beans for dinner

Good, quick dinners are often my favorites!

I have to go work on finishing up this document I’m editing, but make sure to these out!

I love butterscotch chips in cookies. I think it’s one of my favorite cookie add-ins.

My mom’s best friend Jill makes these awesome oatmeal cookies with only butterscotch chips and they are some of my favorite cookies – ever!

Nick and I wanted some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies a while ago, so I made the Quaker Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookie recipe that’s usually on the lid of the oatmeal canisters but I used 1/2 semi-sweet chips and 1/2 butterscotch chips instead of all chocolate.

Before baking:

aaaannnnddd…..after!

Hello Mrs. Butterscotch Chip

The mix of semi-sweet chocolate and the sweet, buttery butterscotch was SO good! It made for a really good balance in the cookies. I don’t know if I can make these without butterscotch chips now!

Here’s a few more shots just for good measure 🙂

Crispy goodness…

If you haven’t tried this recipe, you should! I’ve never tried it with the raisins – I like chocolate and butterscotch too much to do that 🙂

Happy End to Your Monday! Are you happy it’s over? I am. That means it’s one day closer to the weekend!

I knew Nick and I were planning on running once he got home (since my head was feeling better), so I had a weight watcher’s chocolate smoothie with milk and a few frozen cherries

Plus one of the Praeventia granola bars

I could not get Roxy to come inside and cuddle me at all today! I guess she was liking the weather too 🙂

She was napping like that for a while this afternoon…just laying in the sun, with the little breeze ruffling her hair. She had a good day!

We went running and I used the heart rate monitor this time to try it out. The strap on this one fits well, which is good, since I ordered one for me today. We ran 2.8 miles today (or so it said); we’re going to drive the route we ran to see where the first mile is so we can compare that to the foot pod measurements, just to see how accurate it is. It seems about right, but we’ve never driven it to check for sure.

After we got back from running, our two little neighbors talked us into a game of basketball with them. I was on a team with the 12 year old, and Nick was playing with the 8 year old. Man! My heart rate was just as high playing basketball compared to when we were running! I got a good, long workout in today between the run and the hoops. Playing with them is fun – they’re great kids.

By the time we were finished playing b-ball, it was 7:00, and I was tired and hungry! I decided to forego my earlier dinner plans – mainly because I wanted barley for the meal, and I found out that I didn’t have any. The local pizza place had a pretty good deal, so we each ordered a small pizza and I made some side salads to have with it.

This place has pretty good pizza – not the best we’ve ever had, but it’s better than Pizza Hut and that’s the only other option near us.

I’m off to edit a document and catch up on blogs.

What are your favorite pizza toppings?

I love ham/pineapple, but I also love a veggie-ful pizza and tomato/basil/mozzarella! I guess I just love pizza – I think I’d eat just about anything on it. One really good one we had not too long ago had pepperoni, black olives, fresh basil, and roasted red peppers – it was a great combination!

It is absolutely beautiful today! I am loving the spring sunlight pouring in through the windows. My head is feeling a lot better – I think the combo of good food and Aleve works well for me 🙂 It’s not completely gone, but I am feeling much better than when I woke up this morning.

At least I’ve been getting stuff done! I washed the sheets today and did a little cleaning up around the house this morning – just so I could feel like I contributed something while being at home today! I also ordered a heart rate monitor for me today! We found one that was a really good price on Amazon and ordered one last week to see if we liked it – well, we both love it so I went ahead and ordered another one so we wouldn’t have to fight over it 🙂 This one does not have GPS, but it comes with this little food pod you clip on your shoes so you still know how far you went – and it came with the USB port, too. I couldn’t believe we found it for so cheap. I’m excited for mine to get here!!!

Lunch today was so colorful and bright!

I had some of my free veggies from yesterday, plus a grilled chicken/cheese quesadilla.

Melty cheesy goodness.

I know I’ll be having a snack soon because I’m already feeling a little hungry and we’re going to try to go for a run once Nick’s get home so I’ll need some fuel in my belly!

What’s the best movie you’ve seen lately?

One of the best ones we’ve seen in the past couple of months was Defiance with Daniel Craig (aka, the new 007). It’s this amazing true story about brothers that help save 1200 Jews by living in the woods during WWII. It was probably one of the best movies I’ve ever seen, actually.

Gah…not my favorite way to wake up. I’ve had a headache since I woke up this morning, so needless to say, I stayed home. I just didn’t think I could go stare at my work computer for 8 hours with this headache.

I was having a hard time deciding on what I wanted for breakfast, but Nick’s breakfast plans helped solve that problem. He made some bacon, so I decided on some eggs and grits – no surprise there, huh?

That was the best / most thought-provoking sentence used in my WW meeting today. We had a great meeting – it’s always good to see my other “coworkers” that work all over the state and just spend some time together. The post title definitely has me thinking about things, though. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about that in the near future 🙂

I ate /drank all my food that I took with me, and I’m glad I packed my wrap and trail mix! They usually have some snacks, too, but I never have time to eat a full lunch before we leave, so I need more than just veggies over a 3-4 hour period!

I did take a full plate of veggies with about a tsp of some dip, plus this cheese stick.

I had this plate as my “appetizer” before digging into my green smoothie and almond butter/banana wrap. I ate my trail mix about halfway through the meeting and had a bottle of water. The good thing is that they usually have pretty healthy snacks at these meetings – at least it’s not all cookies and brownies!

Because I got to bring home the rest of this huge veggie tray! Now I know why you love free food! 🙂 I was so excited when they told me I could take the rest of it if I wanted. It’s already washed and cut, so it will make nice additions to lunches/snacks/and maybe dinners this week. I hope I made you proud!

Before I left for the meeting earlier today, I put a meat sauce in the crockpot to simmer away while I was gone – I actually cooked the meat yesterday, so I just had to dump that in with some crushed tomatoes and spices and let it go.

I’m so glad I thought to do that! All I had to do when I got home at 6 was cook some pasta, toast some bread, and put together some salads with the rest of the toppings from our salads last night.

I had a salad with romaine, black olives, ff feta, sundried tomatoes, red onion, and some olive oil/spices.

I made some whole wheat angel hair to have with my meat sauce – I had about a cup of pasta with some sauce. Plus 2 slices of that sourdough bread, toasted, and brushed with a little olive oil/spices.

Of course, eating this jump started my hunger again! I was fine until I ate this 🙂 My “lunch” today was definitely not as filling as usual, so I made sure to have dessert tonight to make up for it!

I bought these interesting looking cookies at the grocery store Friday night and wanted to try them. I love the specialty and International isles in the grocery store! I get stuck there all the time. I saw this awesome muesli that I’ll have to buy soon, too.

They had them in a few different flavors, but I saw the cherry first so those are the ones I bought.

I crumbled up 2 of the cookies over some of my forbidden food (coconut milk ice cream).

These cookies were so strange, yet so good! They are such a different texture than any other cookie I’ve had, but I really enjoyed them. It’s a layer of spongecake on the bottom, a filling of this cherry-gummy-like stuff, then covered with a thin, crispy shell of chocolate. The chocolate/cherry/spongecake went great with the subtle coconut flavor in the ice cream. Betsy – I think you would love these cookies! The middle really reminded me of a really soft gummy.

Well…I’m watching Iron Chef and am going to try my best to catch up on blogs from today!